Industry news

The acquisition of Thesys expands Capgemini’s global delivery capabilities for Temenos-enabled core banking front-to back-office solutions and product offerings – such as retail, corporate, universal, private wealth management, Islamic banking and microfinance – to financial institutions, and bolsters Capgemini’s position as a leading core banking and wealth management service provider. Thesys’ specialized service delivery infrastructure will expand the scope of Capgemini’s offerings in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and will strengthen its position in the packaged core banking platform market.

Its portfolio of services complements Capgemini’s vast financial services sector expertise in business and IT services and its industry leading data migration, testing and project management services. The acquisition of Thesys, to become part of Capgemini’s current offering, should provide Temenos’ current and prospective clients with the opportunity to significantly accelerate speed to market, mitigate risk and enhance operational efficiency.

Tirunelveli Sivaramakrishnan Jeyaraman, CEO of Thesys, said: “Thesys has delivered the highest levels of Temenos implementation services for over a decade. Combining Thesys’s offerings with Capgemini’s global delivery model will create the industry-leading delivery platform of choice for Temenos-enabled core banking and wealth management implementation services."

Aiman Ezzat, Chief Executive Officer of Capgemini’s Financial ServicesGlobal Business Unit, said: “The acquisition of Thesys enables Capgemini to create value for more than 700 existing Temenos clients as well as a large prospective client base,” said Aiman Ezzat, Chief Executive Officer of Capgemini’s Financial ServicesGlobal Business Unit. “This acquisition helps ensure that Capgemini will maintain a leadership position as a trusted business and technology solutions partner in the retail banking and wealth management market segments.”

Luxoft, a leading global provider of advanced application and product development services, today announced its 2011 outsourcing industry predictions. As companies continue to rebuild and re-invest following the global economic recession, the overall outlook for the outsourcing industry is strong. Fuelled by technological expertise, regional advantages and business alignment capabilities, Luxoft believes that outsourcing will move from a more fragmented function towards a more integrated approach which will help companies to achieve their business goals in the year ahead.

High Demand for Global Delivery Capabilities

In 2011, the market will see an increased push for more comprehensive global IT strategies. In the year ahead, enterprises will look for outsourcing vendors with strong global delivery capabilities in an effort to optimise cost structure, increase scalability, tap into the global labour pool, and foster innovation.

Mobile Software Surpasses Other Traditional Application Development Platforms

With the rise of mobile device usage in the enterprise environment, companies are more than ever focused on software application development for devices such as the iPhone, Android and tablet PCs such as the iPad. As such, mobile software will surpass application development on all other traditional computing platforms in 2011. Furthering this trend will be companies that demand access to services and wireless internet connections in cars and airplanes and will push for the development of new solutions to meet this growing demand.

Larger Corporations Turn to Agile

In the past, Agile was seen as an effective development methodology for small to mid-sized organisations. Today, that trend has transitioned to larger enterprises that are looking to effectively manage processes and respond to change, as well as to have full visibility into possible outcomes for stellar software delivery. The same flexibility that Agile software development has provided to smaller enterprises will now allow large corporations to continually transform and thrive in a dynamic environment.

Transformational Outsourcing Becomes Mainstream

Today, more and more executives are recognising that outsourcing can deliver significant gains by way of efficiency, productivity, quality and cost-savings. In 2011, companies will look for an outsourcer with the capacity to take over the entire product or application development process, and in some cases, manage the entire business function. This will allow the client company to focus internal efforts on advancing the business, while the outsourcer focuses on cost structure, optimisation and other factors that contribute to business growth for that particular segment.

Cloud Computing Spans the Enterprise

Whether used in a storage capacity or to greatly decrease carbon footprints, the public cloud will experience growth, specifically in the area of Internet services in 2011. In addition, large corporations will embrace the benefits of the private cloud, as previous doubts will give way to clear cost-savings and infrastructure optimisation benefits. As a result, the outsourcing market will witness a steep increase in demand for the rework of existing applications and the innovation needed to develop new corporate solutions.

Industries to Drive Outsourcing in 2011

In response to growing pressures and regulations imposed on the banking community over the past several years, the outsourcing industry will see a drastic rise in participation from financial services companies. More specifically, U.S. and European-based business units operating in investment banking, commodity and equity trading, fixed income and risk management will find the value and quality that outsourcing provides to be an enticing business endeavor. Additionally, the automotive sector will experience a significant up-tick in outsourcing engagements in response to the increased demand for embedded development projects for infotainment and other in-vehicle options. Other industries, such as e-commerce, media and telecom, will turn to outsourcing as improved technologies will allow for new services and revenue models.

“The outsourcing industry is in the midst of an exciting evolution as more and more large enterprises recognize the broad value that outsourcing providers can deliver for a company’s bottom line,” said Dmitry Loschinin, president and CEO, Luxoft. “While many are still cautious following the global economic recession, many other enterprises are looking for a cost-efficient way to accelerate key business activities in 2011. As such, software development partners that can meet the growing demand for expertise in such progressive areas as mobile application development and cloud computing, while adhering to strategies that will yield the highest ROI for clients, will be at a significant advantage.”

Oracle Corp. won a $1.3 billion jury verdict against rival SAP AG, the world’s largest maker of business application software, for copyright infringement by a now-defunct software maintenance unit.

The jury yesterday awarded the damages after an 11-day trial in federal court in Oakland, California. Oracle sued SAP in 2007 claiming its U.S.-based unit made hundreds of thousands of illegal downloads and several thousand copies of Oracle’s software to avoid paying licensing fees and steal customers.

SAP got a “toxic Christmas present from Oracle,” Thomas Becker, a Commerzbank AG analyst, said today. “$1.3 billion is a bold number and the amount is higher than we expected.”

The verdict, which came after one day of deliberations, is the biggest ever for copyright infringement and the largest U.S. jury award of 2010, according to Bloomberg data. The award is about equal to SAP’s forecasted net income for the fourth quarter, excluding some costs, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

SAP spokesman Bill Wohl said the German software maker will pursue all available options, including post-trial motions and will appeal if necessary. “This will unfortunately be a prolonged process and we continue to hope that the matter can be resolved appropriately without more years of litigation.”

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, has reserved $160 million for the litigation.

Lower Provisions

“The provisions which they made were much lower than the ruling,” Theo Kitz, an analyst at Merck Finck in Munich, said today. “The judge may reduce the award and they can appeal, but I don’t expect the reduction will be large.”

Shares of SAP today dropped as much as 1.6 percent to 35.63 euros and were down 1 percent at 35.85 euros as of 12:18 p.m. in Frankfurt trading. Oracle yesterday gained as much as 1.9 percent to as high as $27.70 in extended U.S. trading after the verdict.

SAP spokesman Guenther Gaugler said via phone today that the jury award won’t have an effect on its operating business and forecast. The company on Oct. 27 reiterated its full-year outlook of non-IFRS software and software-related service revenue growth of 9 percent to 11 percent at constant currency rates. It expects 2010 non-IFRS operating margins to be in the 30 percent to 31 percent range.

Oracle said in its lawsuit that the copyrighted software was used by SAP’s U.S.-based TomorrowNow unit to offer technical support to customers of companies that were acquired by Oracle, to lure the customers to buy products from SAP, and to deprive Oracle of support revenue for future product development.

‘Liability Shield’

TomorrowNow had a program to automate the downloading of the software from Oracle’s customer-service websites, which at one point crashed Oracle’s computer systems, according to the evidence at trial.

SAP’s executive board knew that TomorrowNow might be accessing Oracle’s software when it considered buying the unit, according to evidence at trial. SAP acquired TomorrowNow in 2005 and kept it incorporated as a separate entity as a “liability shield,” Oracle attorneys said.

Jurors mulled a verdict that at first ranged from $519 million to $3 billion, said the jury foreman, who declined to give his name. The panel decided on an award that represented the fair market value of the license SAP should have negotiated with Oracle rather than trying to estimate Oracle’s lost profits from infringement, he said.

‘Fair Number’

The panel looked at “the scope, the duration and the timing” of TomorrowNow’s conduct, the foreman said. The $1.3 billion, which was less than the $1.7 billion Oracle’s expert had recommended, took into account all the elements of damages to Oracle that had occurred, he said.

“We thought that was a fair number,” the foreman said.

The executive board’s involvement in overseeing and approving the $10 million acquisition of the 30-employee subsidiary, which occurred just days before Christmas of 2004, showed how valuable TomorrowNow was to SAP, said one of the jurors, Joe Bangay.

“If you take something from someone and you use it, you have to pay,” Bangay, 57, an auto body technician, said.

Geoffrey Howard, an attorney for Redwood City, California- based Oracle, said before the verdict that the breadth of the illegal downloading was “unprecedented” in the software industry.

‘Guilt and Liability’

“For more than three years, SAP stole thousands of copies of Oracle software and then resold that software and related services to Oracle’s own customers,” Oracle President Safra Catz said in an e-mailed statement. “Right before the trial began, SAP admitted its guilt and liability; then the trial made it clear that SAP’s most senior executives were aware of the illegal activity from the very beginning.”

Oracle has used more than 65 acquisitions worth more than $42 billion since the beginning of 2005 to become the second- largest supplier of business applications after SAP.

Just before the trial began, Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said his company would show evidence that former SAP CEO Leo Apotheker, now CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., another Oracle rival, had overseen the TomorrowNow’s downloads. Oracle elected not to show Apotheker’s videotaped testimony, and said it was unable to subpoena him to appear as a witness.

Mylene Mangalindan, an HP spokeswoman, said Nov. 19 that Oracle had ‘been trying to harass’’ Apotheker, who had a limited role in TomorrowNow. Oracle competes with HP in the market for computer servers.

‘Grossly Exaggerated’

SAP didn’t contest that it was liable for the infringement by TomorrowNow, which it closed in 2008. SAP lawyers told jurors that Oracle’s damage estimate was grossly exaggerated and SAP owed about $40 million for infringement.

TomorrowNow garnered just 358 customers out of about 3,000 potential customers, and only 86 of them bought products from SAP and a small portion of those customers converted to SAP because of the infringement, company lawyers told the jury.

Damages should be based on the amount of profits Oracle lost and SAP gained from the customers who left Oracle due to the infringement, Bob Mittelstaedt, SAP’s attorney, told the jury. He declined to comment after the verdict.

The verdict is the 23rd-biggest jury award of all time, according to Bloomberg data. The largest jury award in a copyright-infringement case previously was $136 million verdict by a Los Angeles jury in 2002 in a Recording Industry Association of America lawsuit against Media Group Inc. for copying and distributing 1,500 songs by artists including Elvis Presley, Madonna and James Brown, according to Bloomberg data.

The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating “some facts and circumstances” involved in Oracle’s lawsuit, according to an Aug. 5 court filing by SAP. Kyle Waldinger, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco who attended the trial, declined to comment Nov. 1.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-23/sap-must-pay-oracle-1-3-billion-over-unit-s-downloads.html

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey is no longer talking about net neutrality – and how he both agrees and disagrees with the principle – and has instead turned his attention to the benefits of cloud computing.

The minister outlined the technology's potential at the third annual UK-China Internet Forum, held yesterday at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The forum brings together government and business from both countries to discuss commercial opportunities and policy issues related to the internet.

Vaizey, in line with the soon-to-depart government CIO John Suffolk and other IT-savvy members of the Cabinet Office, argued that cloud computing could drastically reduce costs for new companies and transform, for example, the way people use portable devices.

He said: “Access to the networked resources provided by ‘clouds’ enables companies to enter markets without having to meet the capital costs of building their own computer infrastructure.

“What they get instead is a sort of ‘pay-as-you-go’ service tailored to their specific requirements. This is especially significant today, at a time when we are seeing an explosion in the number of portable devices with limited storage capacity.

“Access to clouds enables them to transcend that limitation and provide a level of functionality that would normally be associated with much larger machines.”

But realising the full potential of this technology would require significant change, Vaizey added.

He said ensuring individual privacy and data security, which would be essential for consumer trust and confidence, would need a step-change in co-operation between industry, consumers and governments.

The minister also argued that the advance of cloud computing was a good illustration of the need for international co-operation around the development and maintenance of the internet: “Cloud computing will require international co-operation to ensure the very important developments on the internet that hold great potential for both our countries [China and the UK] are taken forward.”

Source: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1900017/comms-minister-cloud-key-supporting-international-trade

The Video Touch Mart (VTM) was launched at Intelenet’s Plymouth contact centre by Oliver Colvile MP, and is the first kiosk of its type made available in this country to enable live interaction between customers and call centre agents. The VTM uses high quality video and audio to allow back-end call centre agents based in Plymouth to provide assistance to customers looking for help, whilst completing transactions.

With broadband internet and video telephony, and a transaction ready card reader (for both debit and credit cards) and printer, the VTM is ideal for organisations in both the public and private sectors looking for a cost-effective method of providing user-friendly and speedy transactions.

Rohit Narang, Sales Director at Intelenet said: “We’ve found that customers increasingly prefer face-to-face interaction to quickly resolve their queries. The high cost of labour and real estate makes establishing physical face-to-face interaction channels at multiple locations impractical – all of which makes the VTM a cost-effective and convenient way for organisations to connect with customers and add value to them in real time.”

Oliver Colvile MP said: “I’m delighted to be here today to help with the launch of Intelenet’s VTM. It’s an extremely innovative solution, and one which I’m sure will appeal to any organisation with the need to process transactions or provide information in busy areas. I’m also very pleased that Plymouth has been chosen as the location for the first of these kiosks, and I’m sure that it won’t be too long until they become a common sight up and down the country.”

Speaking publicly for the first time since he was appointed CEO of Hewlett-Packard in late September, Leo Apotheker on Monday said that HP will focus more on software and that he still has some learning to do about the company.

Apotheker spoke during a brief conference call with journalists to discuss the company's quarterly earnings report, where HP reported fourth-quarter net revenue of US$33.3 billion, up 8 percent from the same quarter last year. Net earnings for the quarter were $2.5 billion, up 5 percent over the same period in 2009.

HP has explained Apotheker's silence over the past month by saying that he was on a tour visiting HP employees and customers. That tour appears to have kept him away from California, where he could have otherwise been subpoenaed by Oracle to appear in court. Oracle has charged SAP with stealing software during a time when Apotheker was CEO of SAP.

During the conference call, Apotheker said that he'd been meeting with employees and customers around the world "from California to Massachusetts and Germany to Singapore with many stops in between."

When one reporter asked where he was, Apotheker noted that was an odd question but answered that he was in Palo Alto, California, at HP's headquarters. "Would you like a picture?" he quipped.

Apotheker said he is excited about HP's prospects but he has more work to do to learn about the company. "My top priority is to immerse myself deeper in the business," he said.

One area of growth he has already identified for HP is in software, which currently represents 3 percent of revenue for the company, he said. "But I think we can do a lot better," he said. "We feel that with software we can add a lot of value and strength to what we can do for our customers." HP would like to double or even triple the share of software revenue it brings in, he said.

It has options for growing its software business, including internal investments and acquisitions, he said.

In the fourth quarter, software revenue grew 1 percent year over year to $974 million, HP said.

Despite the emphasis on software, HP executives spent little time discussing WebOS, the mobile operating system it acquired along with Palm. HP continues to invest in WebOS, said Cathie Lesjak, HP's chief financial officer.

HP is also continuing to invest in ways to boost its services revenue, but that hasn't paid off just yet. Services revenue increased just 0.4 percent to $9 billion for the quarter, it said. The business has been growing roughly in line with the market, and the company expects that with its investments and new offerings, its services business should grow at or above the market in the long term, she said.

Its storage and servers business did the best, with 25 percent growth in the quarter, reaching $5.3 billion in revenue. The personal systems group's revenue grew 4 percent to $10.3 billion in the quarter, and the imaging and printing group was up 8 percent to $7 billion.

Like other PC makers, HP may have been affected by the popularity of Apple's iPad. Total laptop revenue for HP was down 3 percent. "Softness" in consumer demand, particularly for low-end laptops, is to blame, Lesjak said. Low-cost netbook sales have been down overall, and some analysts blame a shift from netbooks to the iPad and the emerging tablet segment. Lesjak also said that problems in China, where HP had quality issues earlier this year, affected low-end laptop sales.

HP recently started selling a tablet based on Windows, and it has announced plans to launch a WebOS tablet early next year.

The company said it expects to keep increasing research and development spending and to boost its sales force to help fuel growth. It will also do a better job of rewarding employees by reinstituting salary increases in 2011 as part of the annual review process, Apotheker said.

The company upped its expectations for next year, based on confidence that it is performing well, Lesjak said. For the full year 2011, HP expects revenue in the range of $132 billion to $133.5 billion and full-year earnings per share of $5.16 to $5.22. It previously had forecast revenue of $131.5 billion to $133.5 billion and earnings of $5.05 to $5.15 a share.

Apotheker sounded prepared to move the company forward following a turbulent few months. Apotheker took the helm of HP after Mark Hurd, the former CEO, resigned in a sexual harassment scandal. He settled with the former HP contractor who lodged the complaint and went on to accept the role of co-president at HP rival Oracle. Shortly after, Oracle and its outspoken CEO, Larry Ellison, began lobbing attacks against Apotheker from the courthouse as part of the case against SAP.

Referring to Oracle, but not by name, Apotheker noted that "a competitor has tried to distract us and you to the good work being done across HP businesses. We have heard over and over these past weeks that what really matters to investors and employees and partners is business performance and growth."

Source: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3249886/hp-profits-up-as-new-ceo-apotheker-emerges-for-earnings-call/

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has released a code of practice that it hopes will improve standards in the industry and the reputation of the companies and services it represents.

The guide is designed to promote trust, security and transparency in the industry, according to the group, and has the backing of some 200 organisations, including consultancies, analysts, service providers and vendors.

"What was critical in the development of the Code of Practice was not only the process of public consultation, but critically a period during which our members could pilot the code itself," said Andy Burton, chief executive at hosting firm Fasthosts and CIF chairman.

"This has taken over four months, and raised a number of issues relating to governance, transparency, capability and accountability, as well as leading to detailed and comprehensive pilots being run by a number of CIF members."

Burton added that the code is important as it means that customers and potential customers can sign up to cloud services in the knowledge that they are working with a reputable supplier.

"The market now has that benchmark," he said.

Source: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2273381/cloud-code-security

Business Stream, the business division of Scottish Water, is to implement a Cloud-based risk management platform which aims to streamline and unify its Risk and Controls activities.

It’s claimed the software, Risk Manager from Xactium, will encourage a “collaborative approach to risk management through its organisation-wide visibility and remote accessibility”.

There are hopes the implementation at Business Stream, which provides water and waste services to over 96,000 businesses and the public sector in Scotland, will also promote better risk culture across the organisation, together with improvements to business efficiency, and “demonstrate Business Stream’s risk management commitment to customers and industry regulators”.

Risk Manager is built on Force.com, the Cloud application platform from Cloud Computing vendor, Salesforce.com.

Paula Louchart, IT solutions manager at Business Stream, said “Xactium’s Risk Manager stood out for us because of the speed and ease of implementation. We were already familiar with Salesforce, so we know that the platform offers impressive business advantages, such as better visibility and effortless reporting”.

“We are delighted that we have been able to provide Business Stream with a risk solution that matches their forward-thinking ethos,” added Andy Evans, managing director of Xactium. “It is a very positive sign for us that businesses are now recognising the value of cloud-based risk management. The flexibility and customizability it offers hasn’t been available with traditional systems.”

http://www.publictechnology.net/sector/ndpbs/scottish-water-streams-cloud

Terminal emulation provider agrees to buy struggling software vendor and Linux distributor, ending months of speculation over Novell's future ownership

Attachmate, a provider of terminal emulation and application integration products, has agreed to acquire struggling software infrastructure company Novell for $2.2 billion.

Seattle-based Attachmate specialises in software that helps businesses manage applications running on legacy mainframe systems. It also sells application security monitoring software, under the brand NetIQ, and other applications integration tools. Attachmate is privately owned by a US investment consortium.

Massachusetts-based Novell, which distributes the SUSE Linux OS as well as selling identity management software, has struggled of late. In its most recent financial quarter, revenues fell 8% year-on-year to $199 million. The company blamed the decline on speculation surrounding its future ownership.

Attachmate will operate Novell and its SUSE Linux division as two separate business units.

Arvato expands BPO offering in UK with acquisition of Credit Solutions

Arvato, a global business outsourcing partner, has acquired the leading UK-based provider of debt recovery and management services, Credit Solutions, from ISIS Equity Partners.

The acquisition, for a total cash consideration of £10million, further strengthens arvato’s BPO capabilities in the UK and provides an opportunity for arvato to accelerate its growth in several key sectors where Credit Solutions has achieved strong penetration.

These key sectors are financial services, telecoms, utilities and the public sector - incorporating central government - a long-term strategic focus for arvato following its entry into the local government outsourcing market in 2005.

Established 20 years ago, Credit Solutions provides a range of integrated telephone- and field-based debt collection and management services, working on millions of live and closed accounts from early arrears to later stage debt recovery. They are ranked as one of the UK‟s top 10 debt collection agencies by revenue and will be integrated into arvato’s existing finance services offering under the supervision of Andrea Kaminski, president, international finance, arvato.

The company already provides billing, credit and collections, accounting and payment processing services and consulting to a range of clients including; Google, Sony Music, Paramount Home Entertainment, Chase Paymentech, Gumtree and leading players in the internet service provider and online retail fields.

Andrea Kaminski, president, international finance, arvato, commented: “Credit Solutions is a well-established, successful and highly reputable player in the credit services market, with an exciting portfolio of capabilities and customers.”

Matthias Mierisch, Chairman and CEO of arvato UK & Ireland, said: “The acquisition adds critical mass in several core vertical sectors including financial services, telecoms, utilities, and particularly in the public sector.